Another
by dharmamonkey
Summary: Booth asked Brennan to marry him, but now she has another proposal of her own to make. Set in mid/late Season 9, post-wedding. Spoiler-free (except for the wedding bit).


**Another**

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**By:** dharmamonkey  
**Rating:** T  
**Disclaimer:** _I don't own Bones. I am, however, interested in renting Booth. A five-hour minimum would apply._

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"Hmmm," Brennan heard him say, though she couldn't actually see his face. Booth sat on a stool, his broad back facing the door as he hunched over the edge of the tub.

"And who's that?" he asked the tub's occupant. His deep voice seemed even bigger and more sonorous than usual, hemmed in as it was by the bathroom's tile floor and walls, wood-laminate cabinets and porcelain fixtures that seemed to amplify the sound of it.

"Dofin," Christine's small voice replied, faintly echoing in the small bathroom as she punctuated her response with a splash. "An' da's 'Pelkin,' Daddy," she added with another splash.

"Really?" he asked her. "And where's Mr. Octopus? I like Mr. Octopus. He's got lotsa legs..."

"Argh!" he cried out. Brennan could tell from where she stood in the doorway by the way that her husband's hand flew up to his face that their daughter had squeezed the rubber pelican and nailed him in the face with a stream of water. "Punkin, you hit me in the eye," he told the toddler. "Sweetheart, you gotta aim it _that_ way." He picked up another one of the floating rubber toys and squeezed it, squirting a stream of water against the tile wall. "Like that."

Christine grabbed the green tea turtle with its big, cartoonish blue eyes and dunked it under the water, squeezed it, then lifted it out again and squeezed it again, sending an arc of bathwater splattering against the tile wall, sprinkling herself and her father with a wet ricochet that made both of them laugh.

"Li' dat?" she asked him, giving him a toothy grin as her little blond brows arched over her slate-blue eyes.

"Yeah, like that," he chuckled, leaning forward and reaching for the bottle of organic bath soap in the corner of the tub. "Alright, punkin, gotta put your toys down now. It's time to get clean, okay?"

"Queen time!" Christine said with a giggle as she threw her arms in the air triumphantly, splashing tiny handfuls of soapy water on her father and the half-soaked bathmat below his feet.

Brennan covered her mouth and bit back a laugh, then disappeared down the hall, a warm, irrepressible smile on her face as she stood at the foot of their bed and listened to the muted sounds of laughter as she folded laundry.

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Brennan was already in bed when he came in, the front of his gray Flyers T-shirt and the thighs of his black sweatpants soaked with bathwater. He glanced over at her on his way in but didn't slow his step, reaching down to peel off his soaked shirt as he made his way over to the laundry hamper, which was already half full of sweaty running shirts and shorts, dirty socks, and Booth's sweat-creased starched shirts that he always threw into the hamper even though they were destined for the Korean dry-cleaners next to the Dunkin Donuts.

"Almost had to use the wet-vac on that one," he said with a shake of his head. "Water everywhere."

She watched him arch his muscular back forward as he pulled the T-shirt over his head and dropped it into the hamper in a single, seamless motion, then straighten up again and slide his hands underneath the waistband of his favorite pair of sweats as he shimmied them off his narrow hips and stepped out of them, leaving the faded black-now-gray pants in a messy crumple next to the hamper.

"Hey you," Booth said with a grin as he turned around and found her laying on her side in bed with the covers pulled back and a bright twinkle in her pale gray-green eyes. He climbed into bed and slid across the slick, high thread-count sheets and reached his arm around, though instead of pulling the covers over them, he pulled her towards him until her bare hip rested against his. A soft murmur of contentment sounded in the back of his throat as he slid his leg between hers, chuckling as he heard her chuckle quietly at the way the crisp curls on his leg tickled her smoothly-shaved skin. "Sorry," he said with a laugh. "I'm still a little damp."

She met his laugh with a quick, almost glancing kiss, her lips plucking gently at his before she pulled away again. "We should have another," she said, leaning her head against one hand as she stroked a finger along one of the long, prominent veins that traced a winding, bulging path over his forearm to his wrist.

Booth's brows flew up, creasing his forehead with surprise as he caught up with her unverbalized train of thought. "Ummm, what?" he grunted, his brow furrowing as he awaited her response, fairly certain that he knew what she meant but wanting to be sure before he let himself breathe again.

"Another child," she said, the upward lilt in her voice implying that her meaning had been obvious. "Christine's twenty-six months old now, and if I got pregnant—"

The hesitant pursing of his lips gave way to a bright, toothy, open-mouthed grin and a breathy laugh. "Yeah," he said, leaning in and cupping his big hand around the delicate line of her square jaw. "Let's do it."

Brennan found herself unable to reply except with a laugh of her own. She had spent weeks thinking it through, considering all the pros and cons, wondering if he would even want to have another child, their second but his third, given his age and hers, and she had come up with a list of reasons in her own mind why it made sense to do it, and to do so sooner rather than later, but in the end, none of those reasons seemed to matter to him. Though a part of her knew she shouldn't be surprised, another part of her struggled to understand the ease with which he embraced the idea. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Bones," he said quietly, threading his fingers through her hair as he stroked his thumb over the edge of her cheekbone. "Remember what I said before we got married?"

Her brow furrowed, knitting low over her eyes. "You said a lot of things, Booth…"

"I told you I love every day," he reminded her, stroking her hair once more before bringing his hand to the round of her shoulder. "I love this life we have, Bones. Every day of it. And nights like tonight, here at home, with you and Christine? These are the best. I love you, and I love raising kids with you." He let that one word, _kids, _hang in the air between them, wanting her to know that she was not just a mother to their daughter, but also to his son. "Nothing in the world makes me happier, Bones, than that. Nothing."

She considered his words for a moment. "So you _want_ to have another baby?" she asked.

He squeezed her shoulder gently and cocked his head to the side. "I wanna have as many babies with you as I can," he said with a faintly mischievous grin. "A whole houseful, if that's what you want."

Brennan narrowed her eyes. "I said _another,_ Booth, not three or four or ten."

"Hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere," he said with a laugh, flinching as she playfully swatted him with her hand, then grabbed her arm and rolled onto his back, bringing her on top of him in a single motion. "And I think we should start now. Right…" He wrapped one arm around the small of her back and pulled her close. "Right now, don't ya think? _Numero dos._"

"I haven't stopped taking the Pill yet, Booth," she corrected him, the downward lilt in her pitch a prime example of her _don't be silly _voice.

His brow crinkled and he pouted his lips in feigned disappointment, then his eyes widened again and his pout became a crooked grin. "Practice, then," he told her. "We'll just have to practice until we're ready for prime-time again, huh?"

He cut off her answer with a kiss as he reached for the switch on the base of the bedside lamp and murmured approvingly when he felt her hands skate up the length of his chest and her hip grind into his. _Raising babies was great,_ he thought, _but this, making babies and practicing making babies, is definintely the next best thing._

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**A/N: **_That was just a wee drabble. I hope you liked it anyway. If you did, or even if you didn't, share your thoughts as I've shared mine. Leave a review. Thanks!_

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___****__* Special note to Dharmasera readers * __Chapter 4 of our crossover story "**Hand to Hand**" (the 9th story in our Bones/Angel crossover series) has posted. It includes a scene with Booth and Brennan in the hospital delivery room after the birth of their daughter. A serious fluff advisory applies to the warm fuzziness in that chapter. You'll smile. You'll laugh. You may even say "squee." We're quite proud of it. So, what are you waiting for? Go, **read**! And if you're new to the crossover series and don't know where to begin, send me a PM and I'll point the way._


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